Village of Haverstraw Awarded $1 Million Tree Planting Grant

M.C. Millman

The Forest Service's Urban and Community Forestry program, which is giving nearly $11 million to Syracuse and Central New York, also awarded the  Village of Haverstraw with one million dollars after the Village applied for the funding a few months ago. 

The Village received word of the welcome award last week. 

The funding will allow thousands of trees to be planted while also expanding youth education and job training programs. Other areas receiving funding in the Hudson Valley include Mount Vernon, White Plains, Yonkers, Hastings-on-Hudson, and Kingston. 

The funding is meant to help breathe new life into neighborhoods and plant thousands of new trees, helping reduce extreme temperatures from 'urban heat islands'. An urban heat island occurs from city infrastructure, such as roads and buildings, and the lack of plant life, making cities warmer than suburbs.  

According to the Village of Haverstraw, the funds, which are meant to create green space and heat domes in dense urban neighborhoods like downtown Haverstraw, will be used by the Village for trees, landscaping, and rain gardens throughout several acres of parkland. The parkland is part of the future development near the waterfront's chair factory site. 

"We are happy to be in receipt of this one million dollar grant," Village of Haverstraw Mayor Michael Kohut shares with Rockland Daily. "It will go a long way toward helping us create a beautiful urban park on our waterfront."

The mayor estimated that as the development is expected to take another year, the parkland should be ready sometime in 2026. 

The funding was made possible due to historic increases in the Inflation Reduction Act, which included over $1 billion for the USDA program to help increase equitable access to trees.